Power Plants

This is a two week course. In the first week you will learn about the core activities that the Industry executes to bring electricity to customers. We will review what electricity is, how it is generated, how it is transmitted, how it comes into buildings, and how consumption of electricity instantly feeds back on the transmission and generation of electricity. You will learn to:
Define what electricity is;
Describe how electricity is generated, transmitted and distributed;
Describe how electricity is generated, transmitted and distributed; and
Summarize how the consumption of electric energy instantly feeds back on the transmission and generation of electricity.
In the second week, the course shifts to the markets that drive Electric Industry operations. You will learn about the various costs of the electric industry’s core activities, how electricity is priced, the various ways that electric markets are structured, how these market structures determine which power plants are dispatched to produce electricity when, and how recent changes in generator fuel prices, generation technology, market regulations, and environmental regulations are transforming both Electric Industry Markets and Operations. You will learn to:
Describe the main cost components to the electric system;
Compare the costs of different types of power plants;
Interpret the retail pricing of electricity;
Explain the different types of electric markets and understand how they operate to dispatch electric supply to meet demand in real time; and
Explain why and how the electric industry is regulated.

審閱

AJ

Great overview on how electric industries works, specially the relationship between regulator, system operator, utilities and other actors. More advanced course could be interesting.

FS

Apr 12, 2020

Filled StarFilled StarFilled StarFilled StarFilled Star

This course is really having a good side for my future career as i try to reach a physicist engineered application for my career, this is really recommended for everyone.

從本節課中

Electric Industry Operations

In the operations module, you will learn about the core activities that the Industry executes to bring electricity to customers. We will review what electricity is, how it is generated, how it is transmitted, how it comes into buildings, and how consumption of electricity instantly feeds back on the transmission and generation of electricity.

教學方

Lincoln Pratson

腳本

The principal types of power plants used to generate electricity are those that fill an important niche in the electric industry. And do so economically, for the price that electricity sells for in that niche, given the regulations and incentives that govern the electric market. All of these types of power plants but one generate electricity using turbines that drive electromagnetic generators. The one exception being solar photovoltaic, or PV plants. Furthermore, most of the plants that use electromagnetic generators are thermoelectric plants. In other words, they are plants that burn fuel to produce high pressure fluid flow, that turns the turbines and thus the generators. The simplest types of generators are in hydroelectric plants and wind turbines. Both use natural fluid flows to turn their turbines. Hydroelectric plants use the flow of water in rivers. Either taking advantage of, or creating a drop in water level, to harvest the water's kinetic energy as it spills across the drop. Wind turbines simply use the flow of air above the ground, and their operation is largely at the whim of the local weather. The primary thermoelectric power plants are coal, natural gas, and nuclear steam plants. In these fuel, is burned, or radioactively decays in the case of nuclear plants, to heat pressurized water into high-pressure steam. The steam is then directed across a turbine, which in turning, generates electricity. The spent steam is directed into a cooling reservoir, where the steam is condensed into water. And then pumped back through the burner, on its next cycle through the plant. Another type of thermal electric power plant is a natural gas combustion turbine. These are effectively jet engines strapped to the ground. Natural gas entering such plants is mixed with compressed air and then combusted. To produce a hot, fast flowing wind that turns the turbine, to generate electricity. The thermoelectric power plants I've described thus far are single cycle plants. In that they contain a single thermal dynamic heating cycle. The efficiency of these plants can be improved with the integration of a second cycle. In which case, the plants become combined cycle plants. Consider, for example, a combined cycle natural gas plant. It relies on the same type of compressor/combuster combo to turn one turbine. But then uses the hot flue gas exiting the turbine, to boil water into steam, which drives a second turbine. Note that a combined cycle plant is not the same as a combined heat and power plant. A combined heat and power plant is a single cycle plant, that generates both electricity and usable heat. For example, many oil refineries are combined heat and power plants. They use heat to refine crude oil, and use the hot flue gases to generate pretty much all of the refinery's electricity needs. Solar PV plants use a different approach to generating electricity. In short, the plants consist of a series of PV panels, each of which is composed of an array of solar cells. The solar cells are essentially two types of semiconductor layers sandwiched together. These semiconductor sandwiches restrict any electron flow in the solar cell, to move in only one direction. Thus, electrons that are energized enough by incoming sunlight to break free of their atomic bonds, and begin to move. Are forced to flow from one side of the semiconductor sandwich to the other side through a circuit, where the electricity can be tapped to do work.